Burned by Love

by Erin Wright

  “You’re angry because of a ski resort?” he asked, anger flooding through him. If that wasn’t the damn stupidest thing he’d ever heard—

  “Don’t play dense with me!” she shouted.

  He opened up his mouth to say I’m not playing, but decided at the last second to keep that thought to himself.

  “I’m pissed because I never know what’s going on in that head of yours. You don’t talk to me, Troy. Every date we go on, you listen and you nod and you let me get things off my chest, but I’m not getting your thoughts in return. That’s how conversations work, you know, or at least that’s how they’re supposed to work. Is your whole family this dang blasted quiet all the time?”

  “Only me,” he snapped back. Why was she pushing and prodding at such a sore spot? Why was she hurting him so much? Couldn’t she leave it alone?

  “So I got the silent Horvath, huh?” she said sarcastically. “Lucky me. Does anyone else wonder why it is that you never string more than three words together at a time?”

  “No, because they all know why!” he retorted, and then slammed his jaw shut so hard, he felt pain shooting through his head from it.

  Shit, shit, shit, Troy. You’ve really put your foot in it this time.

  Chapter 16

  Penny

  No, because they all know why.

  The words kept repeating themselves, again and again, ricocheting around inside of her skull as they glared at each other, Sparky in the chasm between them, whining and licking her hand, trying to make everyone happy again.

  “It’s okay, sweetie, it’s fine,” she murmured distractedly, smoothing down the hair on the crown of the dog’s head. “No need to worry.”

  No, because they all know why.

  No, because they all know why.

  That. Is. It.

  She was going to get answers, and she was going to start getting them now.

  “Troy Horvath, what aren’t you telling me? I’m giving you ten seconds to spit it out or I’m walking back down this trail without you.” She could hike back until she got into cell phone range, call her mother to come pick her up, go back to her apartment, and pretend that she’d never heard of Troy Horvath.

  She could totally do that.

  She totally didn’t want to, but she could.

  “I can’t talk, okay?!” he shouted, his face red – from anger or embarrassment, she didn’t know.

  “You’re talking right now,” she volleyed back sarcastically. “So don’t tell me you can’t talk. That’s bullshit, and you know it.”

  “You can be a real bitch-ch-ch,” he bit out coldly. His eyes had shut down – he didn’t resemble a person in that moment so much as a frozen wall of ice.

  The pain stabbed through her at his words. She never would’ve guessed that someone like Troy would call her that. Never.

  And then it registered.

  “You just stuttered,” she whispered. He flinched at the word stutter, and she knew then what was wrong. “You stutter,” she repeated in disbelief, torn between the shock of that revelation and the reverberating pain of him calling her a bitch.

  He flinched again.

  “Troy, talk to me!” she half-yelled, hysterical. “Is that what your problem is? That you stutter sometimes?!”

  “Yes!” he thundered back. “I st-st-st-st-stutter. I can’t even say the damn word. Are you happy now? Has this been fun for you?” He sneered the words, the pain on his face and in his voice deep and real and raw.

  “Fun? Fun? Are you insane?” she spat out. “Of course this isn’t fun! But at least I’m getting some answers, and that’s more than I can say about the last couple of months! You’re like my damn mother. She forces me to show up on her doorstep and insert myself – unwanted – into her life to take care of her and then gets all pissy about it when I do, but it’s her being so damn stubborn that makes me do it. You were all proud of me when I did that with my mom; where’s that pride in me now? It’s only okay if I’m pushy if I’m doing it to someone else? Well, dammit all, Troy, I need answers, and if the answer is that you stutter, well fine, you stutter. It’s not the end of the world.”

  “Easy for you to say!” he thundered back. “You haven’t spent your whole life watching every word you say, worried you’re gonna make a fool out of yourself. Words are your friends, not mine.”

  They stood there on the trail, glaring at each other, breathing heavily, Sparky whining, the babble of the mountain brook muted, hard to hear through the thundering in her ears.

  Finally, quietly, “You’re right,” she whispered. “I don’t know what it’s like to stutter. I’m an extrovert. I love people; I love talking; I love all of it.” He started to speak and she held up her hand to stop him and he fell blessedly silent again. “But Troy, that doesn’t mean that I will happily do 99% of the talking from here on out. I can’t have a relationship with someone who I don’t know. I don’t care if you stutter. I don’t give a rat’s ass if you stutter on half the words that come out of your mouth. But I do care if I can have a true relationship with you, and that means communication. Two-way communication. Tell me about it – tell me about stuttering. What causes it?”

  “They’re not sure.” He was staring off over her shoulder, not meeting her gaze, a muscle in his jaw ticking away like a little time bomb.

  She wanted to shake him by the shoulders. Here she was, trying to meet him in the middle, apologizing for what she said, but there he was, doing it again. Seriously, it was like he was trying to piss her the hell off. “Do they have any guesses?” she asked, each word deliberate and quiet, trying to keep calm but not doing a real great job of it. She wanted to learn, but he had to talk to her.

  “Maybe genetics. Maybe not.”

  She counted to ten, breathing in and out slowly and deliberately. “Troy,” she said as calmly as she could, “I want to learn. How can I learn if you won’t tell me anything?”

  “Google works real well,” he said sarcastically, finally looking at her when he said it, but the fury in his eyes and his voice…it was like a slap to the face.

  “Google works real…that’s it!” she shouted. “Take me back home. Now! Drop me off in Franklin and never call me or text me or send me flowers or chocolates again! I’m done with you. I was trying to understand you. I was trying to learn, and all you can do is be a sarcastic asshole. Well, you can go be a sarcastic asshole on someone else. I’m done.”

  Her eyes were filling with tears as she pushed past Troy and stormed down the trail, anger pulsing through her, making her want to shove him, hit him, yell at him.

  Dammit all, she’d been falling for him, but apparently she didn’t know him – not the real him. She never would’ve thought he would act like this. It just went to show that she really didn’t know him at all. She’d been stupid, stupid, stupid…

  It was the tears that got her in trouble.

  They blurred the world in front of her and she must’ve stepped on a loose rock or something because she was suddenly sliding on her butt down over the rocks and dirt, and the brush and weeds were tearing at her legs and arms, and she was yelling, yelling with pain but she didn’t know what she was saying, only that the world started tilting and whirling around her and the sky was below her which wasn’t right at all and then she came to a stop but she couldn’t breathe and dust and dirt were coating her tongue and mouth and throat and she was coughing, coughing, rolling over onto her side and gasping for air…

  “Penny, Penny, oh my God, Penny!” Troy was pulling at her, and like a limp rag doll, she found herself in his lap, still hacking and struggling to breathe. There was something in her mouth then, and she heard Troy say, “Take a drink, nice and slow. Suck on the tube. You’re gonna be fine. Swallow…swallow…”

  The pure mountain water soothed her throat, washed out her mouth, and she sucked at it greedily then, wanting to wash the grit out of her mouth. “Be careful,” Troy murmured. “Not too quick. Easy does it…”

  Finally, when th
e water bag was drained and she was only sucking down air, she laid back against his chest, breathing in and out slowly, trying to figure out what she’d hurt, where she’d been scraped up. Sparky’s whine of concern finally registered with her and she struggled to open her eyes, wanting to reassure the sweet dog. She got her eyes open to find Sparky just inches away from her face, soulful brown eyes begging Penny to be okay.

  “I’m all right,” she whispered, stroking the dog’s silky white head and instantly, Sparky relaxed, her tongue lolling out of her mouth as she plopped herself down and snuggled up against Troy and Penny.

  Penny laughed – just a little – at that, and the ice was cracked – just a little – between them.

  Not broken, just cracked.

  “If someone came along just now and found us sitting in the middle of the trail, they’d sure be laughing at us,” Penny said, embarrassed, scrubbing at her cheeks, trying to wipe away the evidence of her tears.

  “Let ‘em laugh,” Troy said harshly. “I don’t give a damn. Are you okay? That was a real bad fall.” He was stroking her hair away from her face, pulling strands out of her mouth and nose where they’d gotten sucked in during the tumble down the hill.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, her cheeks stinging red as she tried to pull away, but Troy stopped her as easily as a giant would capture a kitten. “I’m fine!” she insisted, but still, Troy wouldn’t let her go.

  “Let me look,” he said, brushing at her scalp, checking for bumps or tears in the skin. “You could’ve really hurt yourself.”

  Sparky, sure now that the danger was over, dropped her head down on her paws and closed her eyes for a nice snooze, still cuddled up against them, her weight pinning Penny into place. You’re not helping, she wanted to tell the dog, but she closed her eyes and submitted herself to Troy’s ministrations instead. He felt his way up her arms and legs, checking for any broken bones but other than a few deep bruises, she was in the clear.

  Finally, he had nothing left to look over, and so he simply cuddled her against his chest where she listened to his heart thump, beating a steady rhythm against her cheek.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered into the stillness. “I’m not used to talking a lot. I don’t mean to push you away.”

  She cuddled closer to him, not wanting to move out of the circle of his arms. It was safe here. “In case you haven’t noticed,” she finally replied, minutes later, “I like to talk. It’s my schtick, you know? My bag.” He chuckled at that like she’d meant for him to, and she smiled as she melted a little deeper into his arms. “But I can’t be the only one to ever talk. That’s really one-sided, even for a chatterbox like me. I want to know what you’re thinking. I want to know your opinion.”

  “I get that. I like hearing your thoughts, so…it makes sense you’d like to hear mine.”

  “What letters trip you up?” she asked, snuggling against him, wanting to stay safe in the circle of his arms. After the yelling and the tumble down the hill, she wasn’t quite ready to face the world.

  “Not letters, sounds,” he said, correcting her. “C-h and s-t. I can sing them but I can’t say them.”

  “You can sing them?” She laughed, shocked. “Is that a joke? Are you joking?”

  “Not even a little,” he said solemnly. “No one knows why, but people who st-st-st-stutter,” he swallowed hard and then kept going, “only do it while talking. I can sing every word I want without a problem.”

  “That’s wild,” she said, scrambling to come up with a hypothesis of why that’d be true and coming up empty-handed. It just didn’t make sense.

  “Did you know B.B. King was afflicted? Talk about singing your way through it. And Elvis Presley. His wasn’t as bad as B.B. King, but it was there.”

  She stared up at him, open-mouthed. “I had no clue,” she said softly. “No clue at all.”

  He shrugged. “I looked online for info one time. Found a lot of singers. Too bad I can’t carry a tune.” The corner of his mouth quirked up for just a moment. “I used to talk…well, more,” Troy continued. “Before I moved to Sawyer to live with my aunt and uncle. I’ve never been a ch-ch-chatterbox,” he swallowed hard, “like you, but I did talk. But that’s why I moved here. I got into too many fights.”

  “You?” she gasped. She never would’ve guessed Troy – quiet, gentle, giant Troy – would get into a fight with someone.

  You also didn’t think he’d call you a horrible word, either, and the pain of that memory shot through her, hard and bright. She was going to give him a piece of her mind about that, just as soon as he was done telling her this story. She didn’t want to sidetrack him or, heaven forbid, stop him from talking.

  But as soon as he was done…

  “Me,” he said with a small smile. “Kids would make fun of me for not talking right—”

  She noticed his substitution there – not talking right in place of stutter – and wondered how many times a day he said something other than what he wanted to say, to avoid the landmines littered around the English language. It had to be exhausting.

  “—and so I’d hit them.” He shrugged. “It wasn’t like I could yell back – at least not without maybe messing up some more words and making it worse – so I let my fists talk for me. After a while, I got into fights because.” He shrugged again, as if “because” was a real reason. “Eventually, I became the troublemaker. Down in the principal’s office every other day, at least. My parents thought that a small, rural school would get me away from the bad crowd I was running with. They didn’t want to face the fact that I was the leader of that crowd.”

  “Hey, you just said c-h without stuttering!” she broke in to tell him, thrilled. Maybe he was getting better over time and just didn’t know it.

  “I did?”

  “School! You said a small, rural school.”

  He shook his head sadly. “It’s the sounds, not the letters. C-h sound. School is really a s-k sound.”

  “Oh.” She sank back down into his lap in defeat, and snuggled her head against his chest to listen to his heart thump as he talked. It was soothing and she soon found herself never wanting to move again.

  “When I moved to Sawyer,” he said, starting his story up again, “I decided not to talk any more than I had to. If no one knew I…” He waved his hand. “You know. Then no one would tease me, and I wouldn’t get into fights anymore. It was a fresh beginning for me, and I wasn’t gonna throw it away. After a while, even my family forgot that I used to talk more. They got used to me saying almost nothing, and I got used to fading into the background. That night at the firehouse, when you noticed me…I was shocked. I didn’t expect you to. I was off to the side, and that was on purpose.”

  “Not notice you?” She laughed at the ridiculousness of the idea. “You were the very first person I noticed when I walked into the building. All tall and lanky and handsome, and of course, you were the only one there with a dog by your side, so obviously I’d spot you. But even if you didn’t have Sparky there, I wouldn’t have walked on by. A girl just doesn’t overlook someone like you.”

  “Girls do all the time,” he pointed out in an I’m-being-reasonable voice.

  “I doubt it!” she said, wanting to laugh again but stifling it instead, trying not to hurt his feelings. He was such a guy sometimes. “Troy, if a woman isn’t paying attention to you, it’s because she’s blind. I think you’re just not picking up on the signals. If I hadn’t come over with the newspaper to the mill that day, would you have asked me out on a date?”

  “No,” he admitted softly.

  “I think you’ve probably been breaking hearts all over this town and don’t even know it.”

  He looked at her skeptically and she popped him a kiss on the lips. “I’m a girl. I know these sorts of things. Trust me on it. Speaking of being a girl…” She drew in a deep breath and looked him square in the eye, not allowing herself to get sidetracked by how damn handsome he was. “If you call me a bitch again, I walk away, and you n
ever see me again. This is your only warning.”

  His eyes flared and she wondered for a moment if he was going to dump her off his lap and walk away right then and she was already starting to get pissed at him when he whispered, “I’m sorry. I was angry, and I didn’t mean it. I will never do that again.”

  “I was beating on your sore spot with a sledgehammer,” she said ruefully, “so I think we call it even this time. But never again.”

  “Never again,” he repeated, and this time, it was his turn to lean forward and pop a kiss on her mouth.

  He stood up, dislodging Sparky who let out a disgruntled sigh at being disturbed, and then with a shake of her coat, her tail was wagging and she was ready to go again. Troy held out his hand to Penny, helping her to her feet and pulling brush and sticks out of her hair while she brushed at the dirt and pebbles embedded in her skin. She had some light scrapes – road rash, as the younger version of her would’ve called it – up the side of her right leg that she hadn’t even noticed until now. They began to sting, surprising her with the strength of the pain washing over her.

  Just like a two year old who doesn’t cry until he sees his momma, these damn scrapes didn’t hurt one bit until I noticed them. Making me into a wimp over here. She decided she wasn’t going to give into the pain and ruin the afternoon with Troy.

  Well, ruin it any more than it had already been ruined.

  “Do we want to keep going?” she asked, nodding towards the trail she’d tumbled down. “You promised me a beautiful lake at the end of this hike, you know.” Plus, maybe she could wash her scrapes off in the lake and let the icy cold water numb the pain a bit.

  “Sure,” he said, and she could tell he was a little surprised that she was still up for it. She set her jaw stubbornly. She wasn’t going to let the pain show, dammit. They began walking again, a little slower this time as Penny watched each step carefully.